the backyard: update i

happy sunday night all!  it's not like me to be blogging so late, but what can i say... i'm inspired by these longer days we have been having.  it's been an absolutely lovely weekend here i must say, and i definitely have some fantastic updates for you all!  we have started on our summer project: the back yard.  yikes.  i like to say that when we first moved in i'm pretty sure that is where they filmed hostel.  yeah.

but let's backtrack to the playing part of the weekend before i get to the working part :)  friday night philip and i did one of the things we do best: played our hockey drinking game.  now this is something that i made up way back in the day but is still just as fun today as it was two years ago.  there are only a few rules to the game:

-1 drink for every shot on goal
-3 drinks for every goal

the rest of the goals depend on the game you are watching.  so it can be 1 drink every time you see sidney crosby if its a pens game, 1 drink for every fight if it's an avs - detroit game, etc.  friday night we had some good ones though:

-2 drinks every time the h. and d. sedin are referred to as "the sedins" or "the sedin twins"
-1 drink for every crowd cheer of "louuuuuuuuuuuuuu" no matter the absent-minded stop
-1 drink for every mention of how damn old recchi is

so obviously we were having a good time :) until the game ended.  saturday morning i had to work - but a soon as i got home i found philip working in the back yard, and he asked me, "what do you want to do today?"  my reply: "go to the park and drink."  and that's exactly what we did.  we both got bikes last weekend, so it was a perfect time to take them on a test run.  we packed backpacks with a six-pack of alaskan amber, a picnic blanket, a deck of cards and some triscuits and headed off to sloan's lake.  after a few hours of drinking beneath the shelter of an aged tree (that one's for you philip!) we decided to head home.  it was about 6pm and we had been in the park for three hours.  so on the bike ride home, i was leading the way... and decided to bike over to three dog instead :) we enjoyed a few more drinks and some good conversation with one of our favorite couples the kremhellers who came out and met us.  it was an awesome day - even when we biked back to our house at 10:30pm.

but sunday we were done playing and on to work.  we were up fairly early and went to pick up all the supplies we would need for a successful yard work day and then started at it.  last year we laid the sod, so a lot of the hard work has already been done.  this summer it's more about fine-tuning the yard, making the sides look presentable and having a place where we can sit outside and enjoy our hard work. just a reminder of what the backyard looked like last summer when we moved in:

oh, the tree in the middle of the yard fell over. bummer.

cleaning out the weeds - and random poles

pretty irises - but no rhyme or reason to where they grew

last summer we laid sod but didn't do much else.  today...

laying down weed guard on the right

the patio now - still not great but much improved!

the crazy side - the left side - with weed guard!

finished (for today anyway)

what kept me happy throughout the day: wayfarers, jones cream soda

what made the day difficult: many, many spiders' nests like the one above

leaps and bounds people.  i know it doesn't look like much, but it was a hard day of manual labor and bug bites for us.  and there's one little surprise...

picked up this dream-come-true today at world market - only $200 for the 4-piece set!  and it was the last one :)  came with the cushions and all.  there's a lot more we want to do with the furniture, and MUCH more we want to do with the yard, but after today we finally have a vision of what it will all look like.  and you all will be around for the yard.

next weekend is the highlands summer festival, but there will also be some yard work during the week i'm sure.  there is more weed guard to lay down and more red spiders to rid ourselves of (seriously).

until next time!
xoxo